With just under half of the season run, the F1 silly season is starting to ramp up and more and more driver market speculation begins to emerge.

As usual, you need to be pretty good sometimes to sort the truth from the fiction, but here’s one that has a little bit of merit.

Hot on the heels of his best performance this season, Sébastien Buemi is – according to Swiss newspaper Blick, surprised, anyone? – a potential candidate for a seat at Red Bull alongside Sebastian Vettel in 2012. That is, one would assume, is Mark Webber decides to retire at the end of his single-year contract extension.

It was previously thought that the Swiss driver’s future as a Red Bull endorsed driver was under threat after a string of bad luck and below-par results at the start of the season, where team-mate Jaime Alguersuari seemed to have his measure.

Following the Canadian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s advisor Dr Helmut Marko was emphatic in his praise for the 21-year-old driver.

“That is the Buemi that we want to see,” he said. “Aggressive, controlled and super-fast, even with a broken exhaust.”

Even Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost was happy with his young charge.

“Buemi has his best times still ahead of him. He knows that with us he is in good hands, with no unnecessary pressure,” he said.